2017 3rd International Conference on Science in Information Technology (ICSITech)

Physical Document Validation With Perceptual Hash

Prasetyo Adi Wibowo Putro

Sekolah Tinggi Sandi Negara
National Crypto Institute
Jakarta, Indonesia
prasetyo.adi@stsn-nci.ac.id

Abstract—validation requirements documents electronically is
not only needed for electronic documents. For the specific needs
of the physical document validation also needs to be done
electronically. existing problems, physical documents will always
have a different hash values each time digitized. Through this
research is reviewed whether perceptual hash can be used for
electronic validation of the physical document. The resulting
conclusion of this study, perceptual can hash to use and can
detect all modifications that occur in the main information
document.
Keywords—electronic validation; perceptual hash; physical
document
I. INTRODUCTION
Validation of data authenticity is a process that certainly we
do on every information transaction. According to the oxford
dictionary, validation can be interpreted as The action of
checking or proving the validity or accuracy of something.
Document validation used to be done by seeing two documents
and compare them visually. With this method the accuracy of
validation depends on the ability of the perpetrator visual
validation. Another thing that affects the accuracy of the results
of validation is objectivity of evidence and quality of data
validated. This is why process of data validation on physical
paper documents often lasts longer because the quality of the
documents that are not properly maintained.
Developments in information technology offers electronic
document solutions. Validation of electronic documents faster
than physical documents and have small possibility of losing
evidence for document validations. The accuracy of the
validation of electronic documents is also very high because it
involves cryptographic hash function algorithms and digital
signatures. With hash function, slightest difference in the
document will be detected.
document cannot be validated electronically because electronic
validation mechanisms need hash functions for digitized
physical documents. Because physically digitized documents
will generate different hash values, it is not possible to validate
physical documents using hash values.
This study attempts to prove whether perceptual hash can
be used in electronic validation for physical document. The
research will be done by trying to validate ten documents with
six type of modification. As a tool we develop java application
using one of published perceptual hash algorithm [1].
II. PERCEPTUAL HASH
Perceptual hashing algorithms is a fingerprint of a
multimedia file derived from various features from its content.
Perceptual hash define two fingerprint similar if both files have
similar features. This method different with cryptographic hash
function which rely on the avalanche effect of small changes in
input leading to drastic changes in the output. As shown in Fig.
1, a perceptual image hashing system consists of four stream
stages: the Transformation stage, the Feature extraction stage,
the Quantization stage and the Compression and Encryption
stage [2].
Fig. 1. Perceptual Hash Stages

Hash functions are functions that produce a fingerprint of
the data inputted. This function will produce a unique value for
each inputed strings and the it will change if the inputted data
changes. The hash function will produce digital evidence from
a digital data, therefore its function will go well if the
document to be validated already digitized.
Although electronic business rapidly increase, until now,
not all the administration process runs fully electronic. there
are still some activities that involve physical document with a
visual validation. Until now, some institutions provide both
physical and electronic documents validation. the physical
Step 1 Transformation Stage. The transformation stage
performs a spatial transformation of the inputted image file
involving the Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT) or Discrete
Wavelet Transform (DWT). Some of the spatial
transformations such as color transformation, smoothing, affine
transformations, or frequency transformations. The principal
aim of these transformations is to make all extracted features
depend upon the image pixel values or the their frequency
coefficients in the frequency space. Conducting DWT in
perceptual hashing schemes will take just the LL (low low)

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 2017 3rd International Conference on Science in Information Technology (ICSITech)
subband into process because it is a coarse version of the
original image and contains all of the perceptually information.
Step 2 Feature Extraction Stage. In this stage, the
perceptual hashing algorithm extracts the image features from
the transformed image to generate the feature vector of L
features, where L << M x N. At this stage we will get L x p
floats because there is L features which each feature can
contain p elements of type float. However, there is still an open
question about mappings from DCT or DWT coefficients keep
the essential information about an image for hashing and/or
mark embedding purpose. In some research they add another
features selections at this stage to select then only the most
pertinent features [1]. The selected features can be presented as
an intermediate hash vector of K x p floats, where K < L.
These addition are statistically make the algorithm more
resistant against a specific allowed manipulation like the
addition of noise, JPEG compression and filtering.
Modification of Feature Extraction Stage felt necessary
because the visual features are usually publicly known and can
therefore be modified. This might threaten security but in this
paper we need this so the hash value could be adjusted
maliciously to match that of another image,including image
with minor modification.
Step 3 Quantization Stage. In the quantization stage, we get
a quantized intermediate perceptual hash vector which contains
K x p components of byte. Uniform quantization applied to
quantize each component of the continuous perceptual hash
vector. There are difference of Uniform quantization from
Adaptive quantization. Uniform quantization is based on the
interval length of the hash values, while the adaptive
quantization partitioning based on the probability density
function (pdf) of the hash values.
Step 4 Compression and Encryption Stage. The
compression and encryption stage is the final step of a
perceptual hashing system. This stage guarantees both the
system security and the fixed length of the final perceptual
hash. The binary intermediate perceptual hash vector from
previous stage is compressed and encrypted into a short
perceptual hash of fixed size of l bytes, where l << K x p. This
process presents group of bytes that allows image verification
and authentication with perceptual hash . The compression and
encryption stage can be ensured by cryptographic hash
functions, i.e. SHA series that generate the final hash with a
fixed size (hash of 160 bits in case of SHA-1) average. After
that we compute the average value of the AC coefficients in
our 1/16th image. We can do this simply by summing all
values of our image, except the first, then dividing the result by
the size of the image. We ignore the first (or DC) coefficient
during this calculation because it would most likely distort our
average.
Perceptual hashes provide capability to comparing the
similarity of two images quickly. Although This hash
technique will not detect similarilty at large structural changes,
but it does prove useful for certain applications for reverse
image searches and other approximate comparisons where we
can compute the hashes of images in a database as an offline
process [3]. The capability of not detect similarilty at large
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structural changes become the main reason using perceptual
hash for validation of physical document.
Perceptual hash functions can be categorized into two
categories, that is unkeyed perceptual hash functions and keyed
perceptual hash functions. An unkeyed perceptual hash
function generates a hash value from an arbitrary string input.
A keyed perceptual hash function generates a hash value h
from an arbitrary string input and a secret key [2].
III. DESCRIPTION
In recent years, there has been a growing body of research
on perceptual image hashing. Study about perceptual hash
increasingly received attention in the literature. Most of the
existing research studies focused on the stage of feature
extraction because they believe that extracting a set of robust
features that refused, and remained relatively constant, the
manipulation of the content-preserving and at the same time
need to detect manipulation of the content change is the most
important goal in the system image hashing perceptual [3].
Different research by comparing Zauner persepectual method
of verifying the hash [1].
Zauner compare the results of 4 content identification
function by using single hash creation function. This study uses
a java class created by Zauner and implement it in simple
applications as a tool for research. The application output hash
values in binary and hexadecimal form. We use hexadecimal
value to compare original value with the modification one.
While binary value we use to measure how far the differences.
Simple application of Zauner java class is shown in Fig. 2.
Fig. 2. Simple Application of Zauner java class
To prove that pespectual hash can be used for document
validation, validation process must be performed for original
documents and modified documents. The expected result of
this process is the original document will have the same
perpectual hash value while the modified document will result
in a different perceptual hash value. To be processed with a
hash perceptual algorithm, the physical document must be
scanned into an image.
 2017 3rd International Conference on Science in Information Technology (ICSITech)

The study was conducted two phases. The first phase by TABLE I. LIST OF IMAGES
comparing the hash result with the original image modification. No Sample Name Information Type
This phase will examine 10 images with 6 type of 1 Image 1 Picture
modification. The modification used is : 2 Image 2 Picture
3 Image 3 Text
1. Content wiping as much as 5%, 4 Image 4 Text
5 Image 5 Text with charts
2. Content wiping as much as 25%, 6 Image 6 Text with charts
7 Image 7 Text with picture
3. Cropping, 8 Image 8 Text with picture
9 Image 9 Certificate
4. Adding content of text as much as 5%, 10 Image 10 Certificate
5. Adding content of text as much as 25%, and
6. Combination of content Adding and content
Wiping.
As the object of research, we use jpeg images that content 5
kind of information : picture, text document, text document
with chart, text document with picture, and certificate. This
kind of information selected because of the purpose of this
study for validating physical documents while in daily practice
we can still face this five kind of documents physicaly uses.
For each image studied, stored with the type of jpg and we
did six kinds of modifications. to modify the applications use
Adobe Photoshop CC 2017 using existing simple feature such
marquee tool, eraser tool, paint bucket tool, horizontal type Fig. 4. Image1.jpg
tool, clear menu navigation and crop. The results are stored in
the form of a jpeg modification also
The second phase of the study focused on the types of
modifications that still produces the same hash value. The
modification is repeated at several different locations in the
image such as empty space, over text data and above the
graphical data.

Existing Java Class Fig. 5. Image2.jpg

Develop Java Application

Phase 1 Phase 2
Testing Testing 1 modification
6 modification on 8 different place

Fig. 3. Research Framework

The first stage is done to review whether there are types of

modifications that still provide the same hash value to the
original image. While the second phase of research will
determine whether the similarity value is influenced by the Fig. 6. Image3.jpg
location of the modification. Research framework is shown in
Fig. 3.
IV. RESULT
The first phase of the research conducted by selecting 10
picture has five types of information that is graphics, text
documents, text with charts, text with pictures and certificates.
Description of the ten images to be studied can be seen on
Table 1, while the image it self show on Fig. 4 until Fig. 13.

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Fig. 7. Image4.jpg Fig. 11. Image8.jpg

Fig. 12. Image9.jpg

Fig. 8. Image5.jpg

Fig. 13. Image10.jpg

By calculating the hash value, we found seven of ten

surveyed images shows success. On that seven images, all
Fig. 9. Image6.jpg modification has a different hash value to the original image.
Three images having same hash value with one of the modified
version. All three images above have the same hash value for
modification of Adding content of text as much as 5%. Those
Three images is image 1 that contain graphic information,
image 2 containing graphic information and image 3 which
contain text information. Hash values for the ten images and its
modification can be seen in Table 3.
By observing content of Table 1, we find that image 1 and
image 2 has the same type of information that is graphical.
Although image 3 has different type of information, for the
next stage of the research we select image 1, as shown in Fig.
4, to be modified text additions in several different places.

Fig. 10. Image7.jpg

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TABLE II. HASH VALUE TEXT ADDING MODIFICATION

No Modification Hash Value
1 Original 97EA50549ABA
2 Modification from Phase One 97EA50549ABA
4 Text above graphical data 97EA F5F69B94
5 Text over text data 97EA F5F69B94
6 Text adding at empty space in the middle 97EA F5F69BB5
7 Text adding at empty space footer 97EA F5F69B94
8 Text adding at empty space header 97EA F5F69B94
9 Text adding at all empty space 97EA F5F69BB5

Phase 2 results showed dissimilarity value for the entire

Fig. 14. Image1.jpg with adding content of text as much as 5%
From observing the contents of Image 1, as seen on Figure
4, there are content such as graphical text, images, and some
empty space. Therefore, the text addition applied above text,
the above picture, the empty space at the top, the middle of the
image and the empty space empty space at the bottom. Fig. 14
show text adding in the middle of the image 1.
modification addition of text as much as 5%. Image 1 has
experienced seven modification witch is one modification in
the phase one and six modification in phase two. Observing
Table 2, only modification 2 showing hash value similarities
with the original image. Modification number 2 actual text
additions of 5% on the middle left of the image. When six
similar modifications done at the other part of the image, the
resulting hash value is different.

TABLE III. HASH VALUE OF IMAGE AND ITS MODIFICATIONS

Crop
Original 5% wipe 25% wipe 5% Text Adding 25% Text Adding Adding and Wiping
ping
97EA 97C4 197EA 1B6C 97EA 97C4 97C4
Image 1 5054 5054 4044 85AD 5054 5054 5054
9ABA 9A9A 9A9A 49B92 9ABA 9A9A 9A9A
77A6 3B26 372E DBE7 77A6 7636 3736
Image 2 9C6E 9C7E D47F BD5E 9C6E 9C6E 9C7E
1AF9 1AF9 38FD 5B69 1AF9 1AF9 1AFB
1A54 1A54 1B76 F7C2 1A74 1A74 1E34
Image 3 2C8F 2CAF 2C97 7231 2C8F 0C8F 0C97
18B92 18913 18992 8842 18903 18B03 18983
1870 1A70 A7ED A7ED 18700 18700 18700
Image 4 03065 03065 2625 2625 3065 3065 34A5
AB1C AB16 A916 A916 AB1C AA1C A21C
1A37 1A37 1A77 1AB5 1A37 1A26 1A37
Image 5 D9A4 D9AC D9A4 2A2A 59AC 59AC D9A4
50087 50087 58146 54A85 50007 50087 50102
1E3C 1E3C 1E7C0 F1F4 1A36 1A36 1E30
Image 6 0B26 0302 38B1 3850 0306 0306 03025
58286 58286 A244 2840 48386 58386 02C4
F320 F320 F360 B5B8 F330 F330 D330
Image 7 6251 62D1 62D1 4B14 22D1 22D1 40B1
E953 AB52 EB52 2051 C953 C953 E2D9
F0A3 F5A1 F1A1 F44A F8A3 F9E1 F1A3
Image 8 F5F6 F5F6 F5B6 E5D3 F5F6 F7B2 F5F6
9B94 9BB4 9FB4 12B9 9B94 9F94 9BB4
5169 5148 5378 50C1 5149 5549 55C9
Image 9 D7FB F77B F67B E75A D7FB D7FB D7B9
C7F5 C7F5 C7E5 868D C7F5 C7F5 87F5
1D7A 1D640 1F700 A2E2 1D72 FF24 1F7A
Image 10 0B16 23E4 33E6 6246 0A16 0164 03166
49A07 BE07 3E03 DB8A 41A03 1A03 1A03

V. CONCLUSIONS on certain areas that do have information. thus, inevitably

Electronic validation over physical document can be done
using a perceptual hash algorithm. Based on the study that has
been done, perceptual hash can detect changes in the main
information area of physical documents.
Recommended validation mechanism as was done in this
study is digitized image and hash value calculation is focused
changes that occur in other areas that do not have a headline.
Further application development can determine areas of key
information for each document and provide tolerance changes
if needed. Tolerance changes can be calculated from the binary
hash value.
Additionally, in the future we have a plan to compare the
results in this research with the following studies: [6, 7, 8].

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